The doctors said at a media conference held in a defense ministry facility on last Wednesday that they had deliberately overstated the civilian casualties. As government officials looked on, they claimed that Tamil Tigers had forced them to lie.  The five men added that only up to 750 civilians were killed between January and mid-May in the final days of the war. They were then taken back to prison, where they have been held for the past two months for allegedly exaggerating civilian casualties and use of heavy weapons by Sri Lanka.

Earlier United Nations reported that more than 7,000 civilians were killed between January and May. Subsequent aerial photographs of beach graves, revealed in The Times, suggested that the figure was more than 20,000. World outrage embarrassed the Colombo Government. The doctors were swiftly arrested when they crossed into government controlled area and nothing further was heard of them until last Wednesday.
The statements met with skepticism from human rights campaigners. Sam Zarifi, the Asia- Pacific director for Amnesty International, said that they were “expected and predicted”. He added: “There are very significant grounds to question whether these statements were voluntary, and they raise serious concerns whether the doctors were subjected to ill-treatment.

Between mid-February and 9 May, the ICRC said it evacuated almost 14,000 wounded or sick patients and accompanying caregivers with the assistance of these doctors. This contradicts statements made by Dr. Varatharajah at the government press conference that only around 600 to 650 people had been injured between January and mid- April 2009. At their press conference, the doctors also retracted reports that their hospital at Puthukkudiyiruppu was hit by artillery in February, although UN and ICRC staff reportedly witnessed the attack and confirmed the incident.

On June 17th the British Channel 4 quoted a doctor working with injured and displaced Tamils who fled the no-fire zone in northern Sri Lanka that there may be as many as 20,000 amputees among those who fled previous month's routing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.  From this figure of amputees one could extrapolate the number that would have been killed.

On June 4th, Rajiva Wijesinha, permanent secretary in Sri Lanka’s ministry of disaster management and human rights said in an interview with the Guardian, that he would estimate that the civilian death toll from the last stages of the war with the Tamil Tigers as 3,000 to 5,000.  Therefore the doctors’ statements are in contradiction to the accepted casualty figures of the government itself.

The United Nations said on July 10th that it would not change its initial assessment of civilian casualties due to the war although the doctors from the war zone said that they have misled the international community giving false figures. "The UN stands by the statements it made with regard to the conflict," UN spokesperson in Sri Lanka Gordon Weiss said.

AFTA feels strongly that there are very significant grounds to question whether the Doctors’ statements were voluntary, and they raise serious concerns whether the doctors made this statement under duress. From the time the doctors were detained, AFTA alerted the international community of this possibility.  This vindicates the repeated calls by the international community for an independent international investigation into the war crimes committed during the last phase of the battle in the no-fire zone.

AFTA urges the United Nations, international humanitarian organisations and other members of the international community who were able to amass information about conditions and incidents in the final phase of the war to disclose all information they possess.    This information should contribute to a systematic and independent investigation of allegations of war crimes that must include confidential interviews with witnesses - most of whom are currently detained in government internment camps.

AFTA calls upon the Australian and New Zealand governments to persuade the Sri Lankan government to let an independent investigation into the war crimes committed by all parties to the conflict during the last phase of the battle so that the truth could be revealed and the perpetrators brought to justice.

AFTA appeals to the independent media to play an investigative role on this matter and help to free these heroic doctors who are incarcerated by Sri Lanka to help cover up the war crimes committed by its security forces.

Media Enquiries:
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